Seouls of Another World
by MidnightCootie
Summary: Seouls starts out as a normal Blue Draik. But soon he discovers the existence of otherworldly creatures that only he can see. He is then captured by cruel scientists and experimented on. He then uncovers a diabolical plot of a very powerful evil entity who plans to destroy the world.
1. Chapter 1 - Discovery

"...Yet we still know little about these creatures known as Du-" Seouls shut the book. He was bored to tears of reading, but he had nothing else to do. He picked up the tome "Fact or Fiction?" and placed it back on the shelf. He didn't have time to sit around and read about imaginary creatures to make himself smarter. There were plenty of other books that were much more fun.

Seouls picked up his small stack of more interesting books, and paid the bookstore cashier. He dumped the books in his backpack as he walked out the swinging double doors. He leisurely strolled down the street toward his neohome, humming a catchy tune to himself. During a pause in the music, he heard a soft, strange warbling note being held out, the same one he had just hummed. Seouls swung his head around. Seeing nobody near him, he shrugged and dismissed what he heard as imagination.

Seouls's mind wandered as he slowly walked. He stared blankly at the iridescent spots on the ground cast by his shining blue scales. He adjusted the pack between his large wings. He enjoyed being a Draik. Everything about it! The claws, wings, long tail, red "cat" eyes- they all suit him. Sure there are other types of Neopets with the same kinds of attributes he could be, but none of them suit his liking. Shoyrus were too fleshy. Scorchios, too blunt. Krawks, too fierce. But Draiks- THEY were majestic!

Seouls smiled to himself, opened his wings, and took off into the sky. He hovered there for a minute, orienting himself, and pointed toward his neohome off in the distance. He began a leisurely glide toward it. Suddenly, he heard the weak little spectral "voice" warbling out the song he had previously been humming. He jerked his head around, searching everywhere for the culprit. He saw nothing. Unnerved, Seouls hurried home.

In the weeks that followed, the voices became more and more noticeable. Every time Seouls spoke, hummed, sang, or did anything with his voice, the noise became near unbearable. He had inquired a couple of his close friends about the sounds, but no one else could hear them. This both terrified and fascinated Seouls.

The noise was somewhat tolerable in the noise of the city, because the melodic voices were truthfully very quiet. They were merely distracting when they "spoke" all at once. So, one evening Seouls decided to find somewhere quiet to see if he could study and better understand the music. He wandered into a nearby forest. The sun was setting off in the distance, and the daytime creatures were settling down for the night and nocturnal ones stirring in their burrows.

Seouls paid no heed to these rustlings, and instead sat on a large, mossy rock in a small clearing. He closed his eyes and listened.

He didn't hear much. So he began to slowly, quietly sing a soft tune...

Can I walk a little more? I'll do everything I can  
All these people that I see- I will never understand  
If I find a way to go, and I change to love the light  
Then my soul will fall apart, and it all will fade to white!

As he sang, it seemed like the entire world began to hum. A mist rolled into the clearing at a surprising rate. Seouls stopped singing and looked around in a panic. All around him, he began seeing small white dots floating all over. At first he mistook them for dust motes glowing in the dying sun, but when he saw some begin to move on their own... Seouls grew ever more nervous.

The blurry creatures moved slowly around him. As an experiment, Seouls sang again...

Who I am inside my heart, I could tell you with a vow  
But the words that I would use would be 'Good for nothing' now!

The living specks suddenly became clearer and started humming in eerie, warbling tones. Even now that they were fully in focus, Seouls still couldn't quite tell what they were. They varied in degrees of transparency, some almost solid, and some he could barely see. All where a ghostly blue-white. The biggest ones were roughly the size of a small plate, but most were about as long as a finger. A few were so small he could only tell they were there by the light coming off of them. This light didn't seem to touch any of the objects around them. Even the brightest ones couldn't pierce the shadow in the crook of a tree, but they all lit the air in a supernatural way.

Seouls sang a little more, and watched in fascination as they began to swim and wiggle through the air, like they were dancing. Some of the movements were so awkward, Seouls couldn't help but be amused. The many different shapes and sizes of the creatures made every single one a treat to look at. Some looked almost like fish, others clusters of lights. A few looked vaguely like wings, flowers, and worms. The creatures were cute, in their own way. They danced around him in the mist of the moon-lit forest.

The sight of these happy little creatures filled Seouls with unnatural happiness, began to sing his heart out, smiling and dancing along with the lights.

Seouls soon lost track of time. He awoke from his trance when the first licks of sunlight shone over the opposite horizon. Realizing this, he stopped his giddy singing and stared in disbelief. When he stopped, the humming of the creatures died down, and they stopped flying around in their feverish dance. The more transparent ones quickly faded away. The rest suddenly grew sluggish, and began to "swim" away from the clearing, growing more and more faded as they moved, until all of them had disappeared, leaving Seouls alone.

Seouls was sad to see them go, but the exhaustion from dancing all night quickly drove him to the ground. After a few astonished breaths, he slowly turned around to face the moss-covered rock he sat on earlier, planning to rest on it rather than the moist ground.

When he had rotated around enough for the rock to come into his view, he found a dark being sitting leisurely on it. Seouls jolted in surprise. He hadn't expected anyone else to be in the middle of a forest before the sun had even come up. How long had that person been there?

The figure was reptilian, and his lack of wings led Seouls to believe he was a Krawk. The Krawk's scales were so black, they seemed not to even exist. His belly scales were a startling purple. On his face he wore a skull mask painted with blood-red designs. He had purple fur going down the back of his head and neck, and a tuft of the same colored fur at the tip of his long tail. In the Krawk's hands lay a long wooden staff that twisted into a fork toward the top, then rejoining a bit later into a sharp point. The space in the staff was diamond shaped, and within floated a light blue orb that glowed with supernatural power. The Krawk's sharp eyes were the same unnatural glowing blue.

The Krawk turned to face him, and Seouls was then able to see an oddly-shaped dark green band on the Krawk's right upper arm. The Krawk smiled, his eyes and staff glowing slightly brighter. "Have a nice dance?" he said in an almost unnaturally low, smooth voice.

Seouls sat wide-eyed, and was only able to gape his mouth open like a fish, flapping his mouth uselessly, not knowing how to respond.

The Krawk stood slowly and faced Seouls. "I would advise you to stay away from things you don't fully understand," he said slowly, the deepness of his voice vibrating the air ominously.

Finding his own voice, Seouls stuttered out, "What were those? Can you see and hear them too? How long have you been there? Who are your? What-"

The Krawk held up a clawed finger, halting Seouls's flood of questions. "If you must know, those were Spiridions. Weak, magical creatures from the alternate plane of existence known as Ialu. And yes, I can see and hear them. It is a rare gift to do so consistently." He finished by stabbing the end of his staff into the moist, leafy ground and folding his arms.

Seouls's curiosity burned. "Sp-Spiridion? Ialu?"

"Yes," the shadowy Krawk muttered.

"What exactly are they?" Seouls prompted.

The Krawk eyed him suspiciously, the glow of his eyes seeming to get even more intense. "Spiridion are a weak, common form of creatures known as Du'an. Spiridions are a form of light Du'an, otherwise known as Avira, meaning "air, atmosphere, and spirit". Rightly named, they are! Always dancing around in the air like children. Spiridion itself means "little spirit," and these smaller Avira are very prone to following sounds they enjoy. And it seems they really love your voice.

The Krawk paused. He unfolded his arms and grasped his staff with one hand. "These Avira come from an alternate dimension of our world. This realm is known as Ialu, meaning "field of dreams". Many who find that they can see these creatures my find themselves pulled into this other plane of existence, as the border between our world and theirs is thin, causing them to leak into our world, and us, into theirs.

"When people are drawn into this alternate realm, most are unable to handle the difference. The very nature of their world can tear you apart. Almost all that cross over never come back. The few that do are only able to do so through a process known as Nirvana, the disappearance or extinction of the soul. They are said to return with their minds and bodies, but their soul is left behind or eliminated, and they are stuck in a trance-like state. Misty eyes, shuffling movements, emotionless, rarely talk, rarely move. They just slowly fade into death.

The Krawk uprooted his staff and pointed the sharp tip at Seouls, startling him.

"But that's not all. There is another realm. A dark one known as Abaddon. 'The Place of Destruction'. 'The Bottomless Pit'. 'The Abyss'. However you want to define it. The Du'an from here are dark and twisted. They are known as Avdimi. 'Destruction and Loss'. 'The Unfortunate' or 'Wrenched'. These rarely worm their way into our world, in comparison to the Avira, and most are left too weak to do anything more than cause bad dreams or uneasy thoughts. Others can cause mischief, causing one to lose keys or glasses. Others have been mistaken for mythical creatures, like Bigfoot or Aliens.

"There is a darker form of Avdimi. Beings so evil and messed-up that any time one escapes from Abaddon, chaos ensues in the world. They are called Keres, or 'Death Spirits'. They cause famine, natural disasters, plagues, and through these, death. They are not something you want to come in contact with.

"Though powerful in their own way, Du'an of any kind can not survive outside their own realms for too long, and eventually fade away or die. They are not made of flesh and bone like you and I, and disappear without a trace. It's hard to tell if a fading Du'an is dying, or simply returning to their own world.

"We still know very little about these creatures, so I say again. I advice you not to meddle with things you don't understand. It may only be Spiridion today, but you could eventually attract Avdimi as well. Proceed with caution." As the Krawk finished, the glow in his eyes died down until it was barely noticeable in the light of the half-risen sun.

The shadowy figure turned and walked into the dark of some densely-grown trees, and disappeared, leaving Seouls still sitting, now cold, on the moist ground.

His mind rolling from all that had just occurred, Seouls stumbled back home.


	2. Chapter 2 - Capture

The next few days, Seouls couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. The Spiridion, the Krawk, the mystery about his voice... it was all so strange! He had to find out more.

Seouls visited every library and bookstore he could find, trying to dig up more information on the Du'an. All he could find were vague speculations and things he had already learned from the Krawk. Which brought up more questions-who was that Krawk? And how did he know so much?

Seouls closed the book he was reading. In it were only trivial facts about how some Avira like oranges, some bad luck Avdimi with an obsession with left shoulders disappear when you throw salt on them, etc. Possibly useful, but not giving him answers.

Seouls left the library. He wandered around town, all the while pondering. Ialu and Abaddon... what would they look like? What do other Avira and Avidmi look like? Who was that Krawk?

Frustrated, Seouls opened his wings and took off, ruffling the feathers of a nearby grumpy-looking Pteri in more ways than one. Seouls soared through the sky, enjoying the giddy weightlessness that accompanied flying. His scales shone in the sun as his wings pumped rhythmically. He looked over at the forest in the distance, and the questions came bubbling back into his mind. He angled himself toward the trees.

He flew over the forest slowly, looking for a place to land. He eventually found a good, solid branch in a high tree. He landed on it and sat down, leaning against the truck and dangling his feet over the edge. He closed his eyes, and softly sang.

He noticed something. It was subtle, but there did seem to be something extra to his voice. But the realization was merely a quick blurb of thought that was soon forgotten. He opened his eyes and looked around. The Spiridion were back! They were a bit harder to see during the day, but he saw the small blips of light floating around him, like dust in a shaft of sun. His song was slow and relaxed, and the small Avira drifted around lazily, just happy to be there.

Seouls closed his eyes again, and continued the forlorn melody. The whole forest seemed to hold its breath as he sang, and whenever he opened his eyes he saw more and more Spiridion in the slowly fading light. Some were quite large compared to what he remembered from last time. The bigger they were, the more complicated and detailed they seemed to be. Seouls felt immensely relaxed, and was content to sing for the Avira for hours. He sang until the sun reached the horizon, when he stopped his music and flew home.

For days after, Seouls repeated this routine. Every day he would go far out into the dense forest, sit on that branch, and sing and hum for the little otherworldly creatures. Taking advice from some of the books he read, he began to take treats to the Avira. It was rather humorous to see them flock to a cut orange or orbit around an open bottle of spring water. They never seemed to eat any of the things he brought, but they sure did love being near them!

After a session of singing, Seouls opened his eyes to see he had stayed a tad longer than usual. The sun had gone down, and deep shadows had set in. As he stood up to prepare to take off, something caught his eye-an eye! At first he thought it was just another one of the many fading Spiridions around, but at a second glance he noticed the shape was too blue and unmoving. Seouls twitched in surprise when he saw the glowing thing disappear, then reappear.

"I see you didn't listen to my advice."

Like the first time, Seouls was left speechless. The glowing eye slowly blinked again and turned. As the Krawk's body rotated, his glowing staff was revealed behind him.

"I... I... I just-" Seouls began.

"Decided that you'd be fine singing to the Spiridion? That in itself isn't too awfully dangerous, but there's more out there. The trees have eyes, Seouls. You may not have realized this yet, but you've attracted unwanted attention." Seouls could see the Krawk's glowing eyes scowl.

"It may already be too late..." the Krawk continued. "I suggest you go home and lay low for a while."

"But I-" Seouls protested.

"GO!" the Krawk growled. And disappeared again.

Seouls stood with his mouth partly open for a few seconds longer. He shook his head, and took off toward home.

Seouls landed in the middle of the city. He stopped by a 24-hour grocery store to grab some food. If he was going to be stuck at home for a few days, he had to at least have a few snacks.

Seouls walked toward his home with the paper bag full of food in his arms. The night was moonless, and clouds covered the stars. He was walking through an older, more run-down part of town, and some of the street lamps weren't working, while others flickered uncertainly. It created a strange strobe light effect that amused Seouls when he walked under one.

As Seouls was passing a row of three darkened lamps, he heard something to his left. Seouls stared down the alley where the noise had come form. He couldn't see anything. He brushed it off as just a stray Meowclops and was about to turn away when something flew out of the darkness and buried itself in his chest.

Seouls cried out at the sharp pain and looked down. Growing out of his chest was a bubble-like bulge, followed by a flurry of feathers. Seouls reached up and plucked it out, and found a needle at the end. "A dart?" he thought.

He looked back into the darkness and his vision swam. "Oh no!" he thought frantically. "A tranquilizer dart!" Seouls dropped his grocery bag and began to run. His legs legs started to feel weak. He flapped his wings and tried to take off, but they felt like lead.

Another sharp pain in his lower back. Looking around, he saw another set of feathers. "No!" he yelled weakly. His limbs were beginning to go numb, and he was having a hard time not stumbling.

Seouls heard voices behind him. Loud, angry ones that sounded very threatening. The voices were getting closer.

Seouls ran with all his might, his wings now so numb he couldn't even lift them. Tears of shear terror sprang into his eyes. Seouls hit a pothole in the crumbling sidewalk and fell with a yelp. He tried to stand up again, but his arms and legs wouldn't respond properly. He crawled a few feet until his arms gave out and he crumpled to the ground, breathing heavily.

Through his closing tunnel vision, he saw feet all around him and heard what seemed to be distant voices. If he had any feeling in his body, he would have noticed that he was tied up roughly. Suddenly, everything just slipped into darkness...

Seouls slowly opened his eyes. His entire body ached and trembled. He tried to sit up, but he couldn't move. When his dancing vision cleared enough, he saw leather straps holding him down on a metal bed. He moved his arms and legs to test the bands. They were far too strong for him to break, especially in his weakened state.

His head swam as he looked around the room. There was hardly anything in it. A table off to his right with doctor tools, and a shelf with various objects opposite from him. The walls were white, and the lights were a dim, ruddy color.

Seouls laid there, not knowing what to do. Where was he? Why was he here? Who did all this? He faintly hoped this was just a cruel joke played by his friends, but he doubted it.

Suddenly, the lights blared into blinding white, and Seouls snapped his eyes shut, grimacing as the back of his eyeballs ached. He heard two people walk into the room.

"Awake now, I see?" a deep, sneering voice asked. Seouls cracked open an eye and saw a red Skeith in a labcoat. A skinny green Gelert in rectangle glasses and an overlarge labcoat stood behind the Skeith, a clipboard clutched in his hands.

"Don't worry. The side effects will pass shortly. But let's not bore each other with idle chatter. Let's just get to the point. You have something we need," the Skeith grinned, showing sharp, jagged teeth.

"If you cooperate, this can all be over very quickly and painlessly. So answer me this: how do you control the dancing glowing creatures?"

"The... Du'an?" Seouls rasped, surprised at the rawness of his voice.

"Yes, yes. The Du'an. How do you get them to obey you?" the Skeith asked sharply.

"I... I don't know... they just come."

"And you don't have to do anything?"

"I just...talk to them... Sometimes I sing... they just like it for some reason..." Seouls slurred.

"Song, hm? Interesting. Write that down!" he snapped his fingers at the Gelert. The poor assistant nearly dropped his clipboard in surprise. He then began to quickly write.

"What type of songs?" the Skeith inquired.

"Anything, really," Seouls blearily replied. "They like it all." The Gelert wrote buisily.

"How about instruments? Do they like those?"

"I only tried a couple... but they don't seem to have any effect on them..." More pen scratches.

"What instruments did you use?"

Seouls listed off the instruments, listening to the frantic scribbling.

"Interesting..." the Skeith muttered. He clapped his beefy hands together suddenly, making Seouls jump and the Gelert nearly have a heart attack. The Gelert pushed his glasses back up to his eyes. Eyes that were wild from terror.

"Thanks for the information, my young Draik. We'll analyze the data you have given us and be back later for more questioning," the Skeith released a blood-chilling grin and walked out, the Gelert skittering after. The door shut heavily, and the lights returned to the dark reddish glow.

Seouls relaxed, now realizing how tense he had become during the Skeith's visit. He didn't seem bad... but the look of fear from the Gelert set Seouls on edge. Where on earth was he?


End file.
